FIA to investigate mysterious Alonso crash

F1’s governing body has vowed to look into the circumstances surrounding the mysterious crash that hospitalised Fernando Alonso for four days.

McLaren initially took 28 hours to issue a statement about last Sunday’s incident, triggering speculation there is more to the story than a “normal” gust of wind.

Sebastian Vettel, who was following the McLaren-Honda, said his rival seemed to simply steer into the concrete wall, and a trackside photographer has told of how the impact was in fact “not violent”.

The Woking based team denied wild speculation Alonso was electrocuted by KERS or overcome by battery fumes and in fact was already unconscious when he hit the wall.

But Italy’s Autosprint reports that, following repeated problems with Honda’s MGU-K (KERS) system, McLaren has now intervened and a hybrid version will be run at this week’s final Barcelona test.

Another conspiracy is that the 33-year-old suffered some sort of seizure, but to date no video or telemetry data of the incident has been released.

Former F1 doctor Gary Hartstein, however, suggested on Twitter that Alonso’s long hospitalisation suggests there is more to the story than a simple concussion.

“Not a scintilla of doubt that at best we’ve been given the tiniest sliver of truth, at worst treated like we were fools,” he said.

So as Alonso left hospital on Wednesday after three nights, two of which were spent in intensive care, reports emerged that the FIA will now investigate the saga.

“We will look at it very accurately in order to understand it properly and to see what the community can learn from it,” a spokesman for the Paris federation is quoted by the Associated Press.

Germany’s Sport Bild said the FIA has asked McLaren to provide its telemetry data, but another report at Italy’s La Gazzetta dello Sport clarified: “It is not an official investigation, but a request for information.”

Former McLaren driver Gerhard Berger, meanwhile, thinks that amid the mysterious air of intrigue, the Woking team should release the data publicly.

“To remove all doubt,” he is quoted by Sport Bild, “McLaren should put the telemetric data in the open.” (GMM)